Marvel’s Iron Fist | Season 1

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Enter the fist! It’s time to punch our way through Marvel’s Iron Fist, the final latest Netflix series set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe before the long-awaited Defenders team-up series, following on the heels of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage. Josh Wigler (@roundhoward) and Kevin Mahadeo (@kevmahadeo) are back together again, this time joined by third wheel Alex Kidwell (@alexkidwell) talking about Netflix’s view of the Marvel pantheon, this time taking on the newest series in a single shot.

Look for continued coverage of Marvel’s Netflix universe! Next up: The Defenders.

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Josh Wigler is an entertainment journalist who covers Survivor, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and other popular TV shows for The Hollywood Reporter. He's the co-author of The Evolution of Strategy, creator of First One Out, host of Post Show Recaps and The Wiggle Room, and occasional Wanda Shirk impersonator.
He once interviewed Kermit the Frog about The Avengers and The Hunger Games, and hung out with Daryl Dixon and Ted the teddy bear during New Year's... so, you know, he's kind of a big deal. Follow Josh on Twitter @roundhoward.

Kevin Mahadeo is a veteran of the comic book industry and all around awesome guy--at least according to himself. A nerd of the highest order, he's obsessed with everything from comic books and literature to television and movies to video games and more. An aspiring writer, his favorite DC Comics and Marvel characters are Superman and Cyclops, so take that as you will. Follow him on Twitter @kevmahadeo.

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Yeah it’s a bit of a bummer to listen to a podcast and hear people you like talk about how bad something is that you actually really liked. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think the show could have spent a lot of the screen time devoted to Rand Industries on more interesting things, and it was disappointing that they didn’t get into the juicy mythology of it all, but I was still entertained and optimistic during the first half of the season and thought the second half was great.

Maybe it helps that I have no interest in martial arts or fight sequences, so if these were terrible it’s not something I noticed. I didn’t mind Danny being child-like when he shows up in New York, I actually liked that and would have liked to see more of a culture clash seeing how he’s never been an adult in the real world, but there were so many weird moments of him being indignant, angry, and rude in ways that just didn’t mesh.

On the other hand, I watched the first three episodes of Legion and was not impressed. Great production but more effort went into making it complicated than compelling. They said they wanted to make their own Breaking Bad of the superhero genre and I felt like they really wanted to skip to the last season of Breaking Bad without wasting time on establishing the show and its characters and get you to care about what’s going on.

I agree. Back in the day, I loved post show recaps to re-live the storylines and think more about the shows I’ve loved. However, on my last couple attempts, Kevin has made me quit. Between spoiling enjoyment by throwing out too many future theories and getting in the way and now just simply putting down things I really enjoyed, it’s not fun guys. I’m sorry to be a downer and I don’t want to be negative either, but maybe the feedback could help you not put off other listeners in future eps? Thanks for the good times 🙂

Rory

I think most of your criticisms are well justified, but despite its shortcomings I still enjoyed it way more than Luke Cage. I honestly can’t understand how anyone could think the last half of Luke Cage season 1 was in any way good TV. And for all Iron Fist’s bad fight scenes, they didn’t have a circle of civilians surrounding the fight chanting “DA-NY! DA-NY!” like the final Luke Cage fight. My face is still recovering from how hard I cringed.

Is anyone else sick to death of Claire Temple? She sits around constantly complaining about superheroes being in her business, and constantly goes out of her way to get in their business. She felt forced in Daredevil, let alone Iron Fist.

Austin

I wish the show had focused on the company and Joy more since she was IMO the most interesting character. Danny was a tad annoying, but I liked his character because when he acted like child it was justified. He was a kid when he went missing and has to learn the world from an adult’s perspective. I liked all the Villains especially Gau and Meachum. Ward was also a great character with an interesting arc. Not a huge fan of Colleen, but it’s nice that there’s a sidekick that can actually do something. I think this show receives way more hate than it deserves. I don’t think that it’s the worst either. My ranking is
1. Jessica Jones as it had the most interesting Protagonist and Antagonist.
2. Dare Devil Season 1 as it had great characters with a few slow episodes, but still great.
3. Dare Devil season 2 was awesome with the Punisher, but I have forgotten about most of the plot outside of the Punisher. I completely forgot about the hand until Iron fist reminded me. Still awesome characters tho.
4. Iron Fist because it had great characters and a memorable story with a few problems that can be nitpicked.
5. Luke Cage is my least favorite because there wasn’t any character that was interesting or relatable. The only interesting character was the first villain who they killed off way too early. Luke was easily the weakest of the protagonists so far. Ultimately, I couldn’t care less about another season because there was nothing to get invested in.

It looks the show has setup some great plot points for next season so hopefully it will be better received.

Hornacek

While I agreed with some of the complaints on this podcast, I still enjoyed the series. Maybe it’s because I watched it long after it was released and had heard all the negative reviews, my expectations were so lowered that I was expecting something awful and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

However, I was very disappointed that PSR only did a single 1-hour episode for the entire season. It was bad enough that Luke Cage only had 3 episodes; all of the previous Marvel Netflix series got 1 podcast episode per series episode. Doing 1 hour for the entire season of Iron Fist is the very definition of “half-assing it”, especially when half of the show is responding to listener questions. The season was barely covered.

If The Defenders had not already come out when I was writing this, I would not have been looking forward to the PSR episodes on that show. But I can see that PSR does indeed cover that show with more than a single episode – with 2 TV episodes per podcast episode, I am expecting worse coverage than Daredevil or Jessica Jones, but better than Luke Cage. It couldn’t be worse than this Iron Fist episode.